


in his fairy tale

by lykxxn



Series: Poetry [4]
Category: Historical Criminals RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jack the Ripper Is His Own Warning, Murder, Poetry, Ripperature, Wordcount: 100-1.000, are you seriously trying to tell me nobody's used 'ripperature' before?, nobody's described their work as ripperature?, this is jack the ripper what else do you expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 16:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13103967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lykxxn/pseuds/lykxxn
Summary: “Gone,” she’d say of him, “drunk somewhere.With a whore.Dying, hopefully.If he was herehe’d kill you.”





	in his fairy tale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Peqoud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peqoud/gifts).



> Weirdly morbid Christmas present for my good pal Ellis. I care about things that aren't Jack, I swear.

It all happened

Once Upon A Time, like in the fairy tales, but

it went backwards

and backwards

and

backwards,

opposite and upside down

like he was in Alice in Wonderland

 

and the wicked stepmother was not a stepmother at all;

with no pointed chin or sharp daggers for eyes.

Instead she looked like a princess

with a gentle face and round, brown eyes

like a mother.

 

She was good at goodness

at being kind

at loving him in front of everybody’s eyes

and making him think

it wasn’t so bad, after all.

 

But she was also good at

shouting

and yelling

and hitting and smacking,

at giving him the belt

and the switch

and sometimes the slipper.

 

And in his fairy tale

there was no kind, gentle father.

There was no father.

“Gone,” she’d say of him, “drunk somewhere.

With a whore.

Dying, hopefully.

If he was here

he’d kill you.”

 

Sometimes he

wished,

hoped

his father would come back and

live up to his promise

and kill

and kill

and kill

and kill

 

and kill

until there was nobody left to kill

because they were all dead and destroyed

and dead

and destroyed

and their clothes mopped up their own blood

and when he was sobered enough to realise what he’d done

he’d stand over them,

mournfully,

and weep

over his drunken mistakes

over just who he had

murdered

with his own knife, who he had cut

cut

cut

jagged shapes into their flesh,

torn pieces of them away

like he had drunk away pieces of himself;

an eye for an eye;

an equal pound of their fair flesh,

cut off and taken,

stolen,

like a jewel in the night.

 

But no father came,

and he stayed dissatisfied and alive

and his mother came

and belted him

whenever she pleased.

 

He grew up dissatisfied,

lived dissatisfied,

and anger grew in his bloodied heart,

furious,

bleeding with the pain of it

growing to despise his father’s whores

even more than he despised his father

and his mother

and himself.

 

He learnt all their names:

Nichols

and Chapman

and Stride and Eddowes

 

and Kelly.

And he stalked the streets,

searching

searching

searching

searching

 

searching,

for they had lain with his father

and had wronged him

by leaving him

alone with his mother

and the belt

and the switches,

and if they wronged him,

should he not revenge?


End file.
